It it just me, or is the world cruising by? Last year, my One Little Word was “make” and I did make a lot of stuff over the months of 2014. This year, for 2015, I have decided to “pause” and reflect a bit more. I am one of those “dive in and let’s see” kind of people, and sometimes, I feel as if it is too much. I am giving myself this word to give myself permission to pull back.
I made this animated text over at this site, which is rather nifty.
Peace (in the word),
Kevin
Here, as a final share, is my ebook of my invented Fictionary Project for the #nerdlution. I’ve embedded my little video in there, too.
Peace (in the words),
Kevin
Today, I got to letter Z in my invented dictionary project for the #nerdlution. I’m calling it my Fictionary. Next up is to gather all of the words and pull them together into an ebook of some sort, if only to have all 26 invented words in a single place for me to remember what I invented.
Peace (in the words),
Kevin
#Nerdlution #Wordvention V is for Vercabulary https://t.co/BJb4M6Zq5R pic.twitter.com/B7T0qJ1dQO
— KevinHodgson (@dogtrax) February 17, 2014
I can’t believe I am at V already in my #nerdlution goal to invent a new word for every letter of the alphabet. The project — which I am now calling The Fictionary — is rolling along nicely. Some words are better than others, but I suspect that is true of the real dictionary, too, right?
Anywhere, here is my Monday video update:
I’ll be completing The Fictionary later this week, and I am working on a plan to gather all of the words (which are published in Notegraphy) together in some sort of online booklet of sorts. (Any ideas on how best to do that?)
T
h
a
n
k
s
F
o
r
R
e
a
d
i
n
g
Peace (in vercabulary-style writing),
Kevin
I am still plugging away on my #nerdlution resolution to invent and publish a new word every day for 50 days. Right now, I am on the letter “O” and as with last week, I am using Animoto to share out screenshots of all of my words so far as a way to keep myself motivated and updated.
Peace (in the words),
Kevin
I haven’t been writing and blogging about it much but I continue to invent and publish a new word for my #Nerdlution effort to create a fake dictionary of made-up words. I’ve been using an app called Notegraphy for publishing because of its design elements, and I find my mind wandering in quiet times to new words. So far, so good. Today word — H — is named after my own name. The tricky part has been finding a balance between humor and insight.
This video collects the words from A through today’s letter of H so far ….
Peace (in invention),
Kevin
It wasn’t that long ago that we wrapped up Nerdlution — a 50 day project designed around a resolution. Mine was to visit 50 blogs and leave a comment every day (see my reflection). Well, Nerdlution 2 is now upon us (no rest for the weary) and I almost declined participating because of some other projects underway. But, what the heck? Why not! And I am going in a completely different direction for this round.
My goal: Invent two new words for every letter of the alphabet, complete with definitions and examples. That means that my Nerdlution project — which I am calling Wordvention — will probably go on for 52 days (a new word each day, doubling up on the alphabet). Or I may find days when I can do two words. I don’t know yet.
If you are wondering where this idea came from, my students are learning about the Origins of the English Language right now and this week, as we wrap it up, they are going to be inventing three new words, one of which will get shared at our Crazy Collaborative Dictionary wiki site (which grows by about 80 words every year and now has hundreds of invented words). Plus, yesterday, at the library, I saw this book on the shelf and took it home to read and enjoy. Talk about inspiration.
So, this morning, I got started and created this word for the start of the Wordvention Project.
I was thinking last night about the best way to collect the words, and realized that Notegraphy is a perfect platform — for short texts but very visual design. So, that’s where I will build up my Wordventions over the next 50 days. I’ll try to share here every now and then, but I will share at Twitter with the #nerdlution hashtag more often.
A word a day …. keeps the boredom at bay.
Peace (in the invention),
Kevin
(This is a piece for Slice of Life with Two Writing Teachers).
As soon as I hit the submit button with a comment for Maureen’s blog post about deep learning, I sat back and thought, Fifty Days. If anyone else were in the room, I would have high-fived them. As it was, the dog was looking at me funny, with a tilted head, but he just wanted to get fed. He didn’t realize that the Nerdlution project, which began back in early December, was officially over. I had spent 50 days visiting 50 blogs, leaving 50 comments (one comment per day, although the reality was that once I started the routine, the habit took over and I tried to leave more here and there).
I’m one of those people who can’t quite let go of a project, so even though I know more than a few friends were not able to stick with it for a full 50 days (which seemed like a lot at the start and still seems like a lot at the end), I kept at it. It became a part of how I started my morning, looking for blog posts (ideally, via the #nerdlution hashtag but those started to run out on me, so I turned to related projects as blogs to read).
My aim was to visit blogs that I don’t normally visit, and engage in a conversation with other teachers. I did leave comments but I have not had time to go back and see where those breadcrumbs of words have gone. In fact, early on, I began to worry about this — how would I backtrack? So, I began with a Diigo bookmarking group, and then started to think about how to visually capture my 50 paths to 50 blogs.
I’ve always wanted to give Symbaloo a try, so that’s what I did. I set up a site, and began adding tiles every day as I left a comment.
My goal now is to begin a trail backwards through the blogs that I visited through the Nerdlution, and see what happened to my words and maybe keep the conversations going and flowing. I’d rather it not be a one-shot deal. I’d like to have conversations, and for all the hoopla over the power of blogging, that’s more difficult than it seems because keeping track of comments it not seamless, no matter how you do it (email updates, etc.)
I’m happy the Nerdlution took place and I am a little relieved that it is over, as I move into a few other projects.
Peace (in the goal),
Kevin
I’m relatively new to the idea of Open Learning, where technology has opened up new and expanded spaces for people to engage in their passions without the traditional four-wall structure. (And, some critics would say, without the same rigor, too, although that would be a source of intense debate, I suspect.) To me, open learning is a way to dip into topics and communities and go as deep as you want or need or desire, with personal goals guiding you forward. This is not for everyone, obviously, and I toggle back and forth between how engaged I want to be.
The thing is, I keep meeting incredibly interesting people in Open Learning environments who stretch my thinking and push me in new directions. We need that in our lives — folks inside our learning trajectory who show us new paths to pursue and new ideas to consider and new schematics from which to observe the world.
All that is to explain that this is suddenly, for me, the reason of a bunch of projects that I am participating in. As a way to navigate my own thinking, I created this flowchart the other day. It is meant to be fun, and was as a much a scaffold for my own thinking as it is for anyone else. Seriously, if you need to use my flowchart to figure out Open Learning, you might be looking in the wrong direction. <ha>
I shared out the flowchart (which I created in Google Drive) on Twitter (my real hub of online spaces) but then, I realized if I used ThingLink, I could put in links to the communities being references. Plus, as I worked on the links, I realized I could add a bit of humor, too. (ie, the moo and the door and more).
Peace (in the chart),
Kevin
